Dowd and Out

He can’t handle the truth.

A young computer programmer on his way to a pheasant-hunting trip last November offered a cri de coeur about government groping: Just substitute “Leave the copter, take the corpse” for “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” Was this, I wondered, the same guy who sometimes showed up in the ’70s with mismatched shoes? Talk about your misty watercolor memories. What’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.

Once upon a time, Cinderella fell out of favor. Nevertheless, Rand is blazing back as an icon of the Tea Party, which overlooks her atheism, amorality in romance and vigorous support for abortion. Our heroine, starting with a family disadvantage, faces hypocrisies, cruelties and obstacles on a perilous journey to a thrilling new world, and uses her wits and integrity to triumph. A new documentary about Cunningham offers a tonic of simplicity and a paean to women after Sheen’s excesses and contempt for women. Jerry Brown doesn’t know who Charlie Sheen is.

We’re bargaining with the shadow of a shadow. Once funeral homes began live-streaming funerals, it was probably inevitable. The antisocial nerd, surrounded by his army of slaving minions, has been holed up making something so revolutionary and magical that it turns him into a force that could conquer the world.

The doomed caribou gazed calmly across the Alaska tundra at Caribou Barbie. Hunting seems more sporting with birds — at least they have a better chance to get away. Unless the hunter is Dick Cheney, who would shoot pheasants that were pen-raised and released from a net to make slaughtering them easier. Hey, dude, you’re a politician. Act like one.

Sound familiar? That’s because all of the above is pieced together from lines out of NYTimes columnist Maureen Dowd’s columns.

*Photo credit: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times